Tech —

Verizon kicked Apple out of bed over iPhone deal

A new report says that Verizon was Apple's first choice for the exclusive US …

A report in USAToday early this morning says that Verizon Wireless, previously the US's largest cell service carrier before Cingular and AT&T merged, rejected Apple's offer to become the exclusive provider for the iPhone. Apple had apparently gone to Verizon years ago with the iPhone—just as it did with Cingular—and offered them a multi-year exclusive deal to provide it to customers, but the cell giant said no because of the strictness of Apple's terms. Something tells me that no one reading this is particularly shocked at that.

Jim Gerace, "a Verizon Wireless vice president" for something mysterious and unspecified said that Apple not only wanted a portion of monthly service fees, Apple also wanted to control the relationship between Verizon and its customers. Apple also wanted full control over iPhone distribution—deciding who gets to carry it and who doesn't, such as Verizon and Apple Stores but not Wal-Mart—as well as any and all replacements and repairs. "They would have been stepping in between us and our customers to the point where we would have almost had to take a back seat … on hardware and service support," Gerace told USAToday.

The rest, as they say, was history. Verizon kicked Apple out of bed and Cingular/AT&T came rushing to the rescue, apparently agreeing to all of Apple's abusive love for a chance to cash in on Apple's current iGadget-mania. Although the terms of Cingular's contract with Apple remains unconfirmed, sources claim that the exclusivity contract in the US will last a torturous five years. Cingular spokesman Mark Siegel wants us to know, though, that they still have control of their customers: "I don't want to leave the impression that these (iPhone) customers are not ours. They are." Translation: "Really, I swear, he didn't hit me last night. I just fell down the stairs."

Sometimes, I wonder whether doing business with Apple correlates to a quote I heard once about doing business with Wal-Mart: "What'll be your first regret in business? Not doing business with Wal-Mart. What'll be your second regret? Doing business with Wal-Mart."

Jacqui Cheng
Jacqui is an Editor at Large at Ars Technica, where she has spent the last eight years writing about Apple culture, gadgets, social networking, privacy, and more. Emailjacqui@arstechnica.com//Twitter@eJacqui